E3: Programming for Life Science – 43513

(2 hrs/week, 4 CP; Fall 2024, Practical course with exercises to be solved at home)

Mihaela Zavolan, Alexander Kanitz

Together with new measurement technologies, the use of computational and mathematical approaches that exploit modern information technology in the study of biological systems have brought about a deep transformation in the practice of molecular biology research. This course aims to train the students into the proficient use of programming in analyzing data derived from projects in life sciences. The format of the course includes 2 hour lectures, in which notions of software design and engineering will be discussed, and programming projects, done both in groups as well as individually. Group projects will come from various areas of life sciences (e.g. gene expression modeling and analysis, machine learning for sequence analysis, image analysis) and individual projects from the students’ areas of interest. The primary programming language is Python, a language broadly used in life sciences applications, but examples from other commonly used languages such as R and Matlab may also be included.